CoD: Modern Warfare 2 is expected to be released on October 28, 2022. It comes in a year that has repeatedly disappointed shooter fans. Now, it is supposed to be the savior of the genre in the gaming year 2022, but it has to make a strange balance between a sense of new beginnings and old structures. That can only go wrong, finds MeinMMO author Marko Jevtic.
Much has already been said about the gaming year 2022. In particular, shooter fans cannot be satisfied. Normally, the games released during the winter of the previous year are the biggest hits for months.
But CoD Vanguard, Battlefield 2042, and Halo Infinite have all disappointed. Even ‘fresh blood’ like The Cycle: Frontier is not hitting like hoped.
CoD Modern Warfare 2 is almost automatically the big hope for shooter fans to finally play something really good and significant again. Not a “hidden gem” or an “established entity” that has been played for years. But the one shooter of the year – the blockbuster, the cash cow, the pop culture phenomenon. Historically speaking, Call of Duty can earn these descriptions quite well.
But I have serious doubts that Modern Warfare 2 will meet these expectations in the long run. Because the game seems trapped between a sense of new beginnings and the annual hype. And that is a combination that can only disappoint.
CoD makes big promises that contradict each other
The best example of this is the game’s presentation at the Summer Game Fest. Host Geoff Keighley introduces Johanna Faries, the “head of Call of Duty.” She then stands in front of oversized prints of the characters in Modern Warfare 2 at a shipyard and proudly tells us what to expect:
In 2019, Modern Warfare changed everything. And on October 28, we will usher in a new era of Call of Duty with the launch of Modern Warfare 2. We’re back, we’re bigger, and we’re bringing the whole team with us: Price, Gaz, Soap, Alejandro, and – of course – Ghost.
We needed a stage big enough to present Call of Duty in a whole new way, inspired by the world we are about to enter. Oil rigs, cargo ships, and other [locations] are just the beginning. Here is Modern Warfare 2.
Johanna Faries (via YouTube)
This speech is accompanied by epic music, and then the extended gameplay trailer begins. You can watch it here:
The whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes. But that was enough to take away all hope that CoD Modern Warfare 2 could be more than ‘just’ a good shooter. Because everything that Johanna Faries presented along with the gameplay here demonstrates a highly strange and difficult balancing act that can only disappoint.
The game seems trapped between two extremes. Faries talks about a “new era of Call of Duty” but simultaneously mentions that all the familiar faces are there. “Of course” also Ghost, how could it be otherwise?
How does that fit together? How “new” can an era be when one casually falls back on old means and presents a team of elite killers from a game of 2009 like superheroes from the Avengers? By that, I mean ‘of course’ the protagonists from the original Modern Warfare 2 of 2009, not the new Modern Warfare 2 with an old title.
The second half of Faries’ quote likely gives the answer to this question: She says that Modern Warfare 2 wants to be “presented in a whole new way.” That sounds not only like ‘more appearance than reality’ – so far, it also looks that way.
CoD MW2 wants to take new paths – with familiar means?
As content creators and influencers got an exclusive look at Modern Warfare 2 before the big audience, everyone was thrilled. It is said to be incredible, would break the internet, and is already a “top 5 CoD.”
However, when the level gameplay was shown at the Summer Game Fest, the mood was quite different. The player in the trailer moved annoyingly slowly through the level and in my mind dominated one thought: “I’ve seen all of this before”.
Rain, evil terrorists, a rocket, Molotov cocktails, and exploding red barrels. A team that one trails slowly behind, the slowest door-opening animations since Resident Evil 1… we’ve seen all this before.
I not only didn’t see new gameplay, I didn’t even recognize the big, new presentation. It felt like an inconsequential mashup of 4 games that officially have the exact same names: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare II.
But I’m not the only one who saw it that way. The PC Gamer editorial team wrote that “Modern Warfare 2 feels like it has no new ideas left” and said in a discussion:
Call of Duty as a single-player experience feels completely exhausted at this point. […]
CoD has a tendency to repeat itself, but this mission on the oil rig was one of the most generic things I have seen in a long time. I can’t think of a single thing that happened in these seven minutes that I haven’t done a billion times in the last 20 Call of Duty games. […]
It comes across as if Infinity Ward has to check off some boxes that keep the game from feeling fresh. Why does it look so much like the introductory mission of Call of Duty 4? Maybe it’s about evoking a feeling of nostalgia for games that are already 15 years old, but what I instead got was “oh, we’re doing this again.”
The PC Gamer editorial team in their article
With Modern Warfare 2, they want to usher in a “new era,” but at the same time fulfill every fan expectation that anyone with even the slightest interest in the game has.
The name of the game is also old, just like the names of the protagonists – Ghost must of course be there. An oil refinery is certainly part of it, that’s just CoD. The weapons are modern and familiar, of course. Where Modern Warfare 2 is written on the box, Modern Warfare 2 must certainly also be inside. But I wonder: Where is the new, the special, the interesting?
So far we have only really seen the single-player mode. But most people are interested in the multiplayer. However, nothing we have seen so far from MW2 conveys the impression that something revolutionary will happen here. There are once again killstreaks, weapon attachments, and perks. “Of course.”
The typical CoD routine cannot entertain for 2 years
One of the biggest criticisms of CoD Vanguard is the setting. World War II as a battlefield has been exhausted for decades. CoD was itself responsible for this with its early games, Modern Warfare was already the course correction in 2007. As a compromise, the gameplay was kept as old-school as possible. That didn’t work: Vanguard was a major disappointment for players and for Activision Blizzard.
To make it clear: I am not saying months in advance that the game will be bad or won’t be fun – I cannot make that statement yet and I don’t want to do that with this text either. But I see that CoD is likely repeating the same mistakes again, only this time with a broader chest and more confidence than with Vanguard.
Even the people at Activision said about Vanguard: It brought too few innovations. So why is there again a targeted effort towards a similar concept for CoD MW2?
The CoD formula has been successful every year since Modern Warfare in 2007. The games are always fun as well. However, too often it is like a generic hamburger from a fast-food chain: Sometimes you crave it, and it evokes familiar feelings of enjoyment. But it is not satisfying or fulfilling.
Modern Warfare 2 is possibly the first game in CoD history that has to live for 2 years straight. Because in 2023, it seems, no new CoD will be released. MW2 therefore has to satisfy long-term more than ever, as there will be no second helping available quickly. And so poorly does the shooter competition perform that there is also no good alternative coming soon.
CoD Modern Warfare 2 is therefore trapped in a very bad situation. It has to satisfy CoD fans for 2 years, while at the same time having to save a shooter year filled with flops, disappointments, and routine. This is a balancing act that the game simply cannot successfully accomplish – even if it does everything right.
At least: a new game mode could be really good. “DMZ” seems to be oriented towards Escape from Tarkov and could be released as a standalone title. You can find out everything important about it here:
Now I want to hear your opinion on the topic. Do you agree, or do you disagree? What are your expectations for CoD MW2 2022? Leave a comment.
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